


The Last Jedi

by leradny



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Gen, it's reylo if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-07
Updated: 2016-02-07
Packaged: 2018-05-18 18:51:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5939464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leradny/pseuds/leradny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kylo Ren dies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Last Jedi

It comes in the middle of the night: A stabbing, vicious pain.

Far lesser things have woken Rey from her already fitful sleep; she had no chance of sleeping through this. Rey gasps, lunges into a sitting position, clutches her chest. In the black of the night, her wails tear through the hum of machinery and nighttime droids, bringing Finn, Poe. Her pain also draws the general, who is there an instant after them. Then, finally, Master Luke's shade drifts into view; a silent, calming presence of blue light in the corner.

Rey barely sees him. She barely sees anyone, every cell of her body devoted to enduring this pain. The horrible, red light pulsing in her vision. Someone takes her hand--she doesn't know who. She sobs into the soft, small shoulder of General Leia's for a few short moments before--as suddenly as it had come--the pain stops.

"It wasn't yours," Leia murmurs. "I felt it, too."

Rey nods. "Kylo Ren."

"Is he dead?" Finn asks.

A whisper of something that feels like 'Good riddance.' Finn swallows the thought; General Leia probably heard anyway, but the politeness of not saying it out loud counts for something. And then, politeness turns to confusion: 'But who did it?'

No one has heard anything of Kylo Ren for weeks, almost since the day Master Luke died. Rey was Kylo's only equal and she had been here, asleep in her bed. Barring an outside assassination, that only left one being. It was hardly impossible to imagine Snoke could do such a thing.

While strange that Rey's connection to Kylo Ren is stronger than that with his own mother, perhaps it is not mysterious; Leia hasn't seen Kylo Ren since he was a child. They still haven't met, not in person. Rey falls back against her pillows and, cautiously, tugs at the bond.

"He's alive," Rey answers. Her breath falls into labored patterns, not her own. "Hurting--badly--but alive."

"Who did it?" Leia asks. "Do you know?"

Rey closes her eyes, but knows that it is futile. She has tried many times over the years to glean information from Kylo Ren via the bond, and failed many times. The Dark Side prioritizes emotion above all things and emotion is the strongest. She often senses pain, anger, several times a brief and stifled pang of shame, but what they all react to is never clear, even with the scattered images that float through the turmoil.

She pities him, almost. The long stretch of unhappiness reminds her of the way she felt on Jakku.

\- - -

"If anyone can save Ben, it's Luke."

Leia had been firm about this.

When Luke had died, she mourned both her brother and her son. They assumed it was an order of Kylo Ren or Snoke, except neither had been on the field. General Hux had been the one leading the forces, smiling viciously as he did. Rey did not know what to make of it when, only hours later, she felt a twist of pain in her gut--of surprise, and then sorrow.

This was when Kylo Ren had disappeared, further than he had ever been, leaving only a thin trace of what felt like resignment.

General Hux appears more and more where Kylo Ren would normally be. The First Order troops are sent out in neat, tactical regiments that were never Kylo Ren's style. The Knights of Ren appear without their master, if they appear at all.

\- - -

Rey finds Kylo Ren lying in an isolated field on an isolated planet, emptier than Ahch-To had been. His cloak spread out beneath him like a blanket. A blot of darkness in the waist-high purple grass, tips bleached a pale lavender by sun and wind.

He is weak. She feels hunger, as if he has not eaten in days. A muddling torpor exudes from him. His dark eyes are shadowed with black.

The strictness of his form, arms and legs relaxed but straight, looks as if he is meditating. It feels as though he is dreaming, indistinct gray patches that Rey cannot make out. But he is not asleep. He has kept himself from it for days. The instant she had stepped foot on the desolate planet, there was a swirl of fear and sorrow--and then, a vague relief.

He opens his eyes. Closes them again. Breathes.

Kylo Ren has fought her with injuries before, but that was not the same. Rey had always felt his heart pulsing raggedly, a well of furious determination she admired, even as she knew he was causing as much pain to himself as to others--tearing open old injuries, aggravating the new. Now that the fury and passion has gone out of him, there is only a flicker where his life should be, his pale face drawn and thin. The man in front of her gets up, slowed but not struggling. Patches of grass, dead underneath him, cling to the outside of his cloak and his hands, falling off as he trembles on his feet.

He was so strong before. The wide path of his crackling saber would fill her with the same awe as watching a wildfire spread.

"You and I are the last."

It comes out flat, deadened. Rey had recognized his wild emotion from glimpses of Leia in a temper, from what she remembered of Han, and now--ironically--he is nearly unrecognizable as their son. Then she remembers the first time she had seen Luke, standing on the edge of a cliff, and something still glimmers.

"Snoke killed my uncle," Kylo Ren tells her. "My use for him is ended. And now, we meet again. The last Jedi in all the galaxy. But I am the fallen one. Impure. Tainted. Who never even finished training under Luke. You know what happens next. My father said so."

This is the first time Kylo Ren has called them family, Rey thinks. And then, all of his mysterious behavior lines up.

"I won't fight you." Tears spring to Rey's eyes and she hurries to explain: "Not like this."

She has been petty sometimes, unreasonable at others. She has killed more times than she feels comfortable counting. Not like counting days or rations. But Rey has never been without the most basic decency: She does not fight people who cannot fight back. Kylo Ren has starved himself, and his lightsaber lies cold in his hand. He has deprived himself of sleep and his already half-insane grasp on the Force is as weak as his body, she can tell.

Kylo Ren shrugs. "Good." He coughs. "I wasn't asking... to fight." Then he throws his lightsaber to the side, and falls to his knees, head bowed in front of him.

For a second Rey does not recognize what is in front of her. Then, a pair of shackles flashes, unbidden, to her mind; a hooded figure with a scythe ready to swing; and then she knows what this is.

Rey springs back, horrified.

\- - -

One day, Luke shouldered a pack and gave Rey one of her own, saying that her last lesson was starting. But they would have to search for something first. How long, Rey asks, and Luke said he didn't know. For what, Rey asked, and Luke said "I will know when I find it." The pack, she senses, has a blanket in it. So it is that sort of lesson. They range Ahch-To, through quarries filled with boulders both glimmering and plain, fording rivers which Rey stops recognizing as ones she's drunk or fished from. They range for days. Which turn into weeks.

Rey is bored after the first few hours. But that is not new. She can ignore the fondness she's developed of the small bed Luke gave her, filled with dry, sweet smelling purple grass to soften it without feeling luxurious. But what she cannot ignore is how Luke says nothing to her after the first day. He only searches and searches, calmly, with no map besides the occasional probe of the Force. She begins to think that Luke has gone mad.

An animal cry brings up Luke's head, and a sharp stab of pain has them both turn. Luke stares in the direction, then waves a hand. Something clatters away from them. Then, another wave of the hand causes branches to part, revealing a clearing where a wounded gakfriis lies. There are pawprints of a marsh sugen around it. Rey approaches, saying, "You already taught me how to heal--" But the full depth of the gakfriis' pain hits her.

Its slender neck is torn. Its long, frail legs are broken. Blood gushes and muscles refuse to move. The animal's eyes are fading. She cannot heal the dying. Even Luke's powers are not enough. With dread, she looks into Luke's eyes, and knows the lesson he will teach.

\- - -

From behind her, Rey feels the shade of Master Luke materialize, like a thin blue hologram. Kylo Ren looks over her shoulder, then turns his face away. "Couldn't wait for me, Uncle?" He smiles, crooked, so much like Han Solo that it takes Rey's breath away. "Or would you rather--" There are tears for the first time on his face, and Rey sees Leia.

Rey remembers.

\- - -

"Mercy is the most difficult emotion to master, it has been said. It is born of compassion, and without it, becomes nothing but cold practicality. Yet without strength, it becomes pity, which helps very few."

Rey wails, though the gakfriis cannot hear or understand and is probably more distressed by it. She wails that she can't. That death is never merciful--never, ever, _ever_.

"There is no death," Master Luke tells her. "There is only the Force."

\- - -

"Don't pity me now, Master," Kylo Ren tells her. He draws himself to standing.

"I don't." She scrubs her eyes to no avail.

"You know I'm past saving. You know that Snoke won't be pleased when he finds me. That he will hardly give me a quick death, or a dignified one." The hard truth, bitter as medicine, settles on Rey's tongue and she chokes on it. "But you--you have _honor_. It would be honorable to kill the worst enemy of the Jedi and the Resistance. And I will be honored to die at your hand." He looks up as a breeze wafts the scent of sweet grass around them. His hair flutters around his face. "Though I don't remember why I picked this place."

"Use your own lightsaber if you want death so much!" Rey turns away. 

"I can't."

"Not _brave_ enough?"

This touches a spark of his anger. But only a spark, and then it fades to a smoking ember of regret. Kylo Ren envisions Snoke, laying a gnarled hand on his shoulder, so many years ago, saying as the blade turned red: "This lightsaber will never harm you as long as I wish it." Kylo Ren was fifteen, already taller than most but not nearly his full height, and more slender and frail. The innocence in his young, soft face shatters Rey's heart.

"I've tried the long way, but..." he gestures to himself, mouth twisting into a smile or a grimace or a sob. "Patience. Never a virtue of mine. On the plus side, Snoke can't find me with my presence so weakened."

"How can you joke about this? How can you joke about your own death?"

"There is no death," he says. "There is only the Force."

She remembers him saying that they are the last two Jedi. She remembers him saying that Snoke killed Luke. She remembers the pang of sorrow and regret and--and the  _surprise_. Of Kylo Ren's disappearance and General Hux's prominence. Of Han Solo saying that Snoke would crush him when his work was done. Then Rey remembers her cot on Ahch-To, and the distinctive purple grass which filled it--made her room smell sweet like this field. Then she remembers--something she couldn't _possibly_ remember: Chewbacca carrying a little black-haired boy around, and a younger, thinner, taller, ( _handsome_ ) Han doubled over in laughter. _He won't hurt you, Ben--_

"I can't kill you now!" Rey shouts. "Your mother was right!"

"Tell my mother... I'm sorry. I would have come back. But I was too young to understand... And then... I just wasn't strong enough."

There is no reasoning with Kylo Ren. There never was. Just like there was no reasoning with the gakfriis, and never was. He has accepted his certain death. His own mother has been mourning him for weeks. Half the Resistance is apathetic to his fate, and only sympathize with Leia because of their love for her. Rey sought him out because she knew he was alive, but didn't tell Leia, or anyone else, because she had no idea for how long.

"But you are strong," he says. "Stronger than me. Please... Master... I want to be free of this pain."

And now, _finally,_ Rey can see how death can be merciful. But she doesn't have to enjoy it. She ignites her saber, takes a breath through her gritted teeth. That Kylo Ren exhales with relief does nothing.

The Force tells Rey where to strike.

She strikes.

A flash of pain, blinding, doubles both of them over. Out of Kylo Ren's mouth comes a dribble of red. He coughs and it spatters her gray shoulder with the color of death. But then, his dark eyes clear, and through the pain and terror and despair comes the only positive feeling Rey has ever felt from him--gratitude. He says something, incomprehensible and bloody, then slumps forward. Even weakened, starved, his frame is large enough to nearly topple Rey before she uses the Force to deactivate her saber and lay him down gently.

She pulls his head into her lap. His hair is so soft, so alien on such a forbidding man. She strokes the line of his jaw with shaking fingers. While she would like to turn away, to close off the bond between them, she recalls what Master Luke said about strength. So she maintains eye contact. She allows the agony to wash through the both of them.

"It hurts--it hurts--"

"I know." Rey tries to keep her voice from cracking. When she can't, she simply holds him. She tries to tell him that there is no pain, there is only the Force; but what comes out, until the very moment his eyes close, is the improvised litany, "It's all right, it's all right, it's all right." It soothes him, maybe better than her first thought.

\- - -

Rey gets up. She slings a massive arm around her shoulder and hauls. The Millenium Falcon purrs like a kitten after all the maintenance she's done on it. She reaches the base in record time. The Force aids her in choosing the least populated halls, and when she does come across a random soul, she only says, "Move." When Finn offers, reluctantly, to help, she walks right past him. And Poe. And Chewbacca.

Leia should be the first to see, to know.

\- - -

A celebration rages in the halls of the base. A celebration of the death of Kylo Ren. But more of Rey's victory.

The room that Rey enters is silent, dark. Leia has sat by her son's side for hours, alone. She began wearing black every day since Luke died. The resemblance to her son, in that heavy mourning color, is uncanny. Rey comes up, lays a hand on her shoulder. Between them sparks a flash of memory: _Mother, Father, Uncle._ The general's tears are silent as she thinks, _My son. My only son._  As she observes the wound on his chest.

"You did this."

"Yes."

"You had to."

"Yes."

"Was it painful?"

_There is no pain; there is only the Force._

"Very," coughs a deep, rasping voice.

"Ben Organa-Solo," Leia orders. "Don't you _dare_ sit up."

\- - -

_The last thing he remembered was his mother, spooning a piece of custard bread into his mouth, as gingerbells in the window bloomed. She wiped away the dribble of golden custard down his chin, but a single drop landed. A burnt crumb from the edge, black against the white collar._

_"Oh well," she sighed. "Nobody's perfect."_


End file.
